1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of aircraft and, in particular, to a process for landing an unmanned tailless or flying wing type aircraft.
2. Description of Related Art
Flying wing or tailless aircraft have a particularly unique problem. They have a very small pitch moment, which makes raising the nose off the ground difficult. Tricycle landing gear are positioned such that the most aft center of gravity (CG) position is still forward of the main landing gear. With a normal aircraft the tail has sufficient leverage to lift the CG about the pivot point of the main landing gear for all CG positions. The solution for a tailless airplane is to rig the landing gear so the airplane rolls along on the ground with a positive angle of attack. However, when a flying wing aircraft is rigged this way and lands badly there is a problem. The aircraft can bounce back into the air. If the aircraft is about to stall, the bounce may put it too high to survive the stall. Conventional aircraft do not suffer from this problem because at touchdown and rotation, the wings have a slight negative lift angle.
Thus, it is a primary object of the invention to provide a process to eliminate a flying wing type aircraft upon landing from returning to the air after touchdown.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a process to eliminate a flying wing type aircraft upon landing from returning to the air after touchdown by insuring that the aircraft has insufficient aerodynamic lift after touchdown to return to the air.